Hingham police officer recognized for valor in Afghan battle

Monday

Apr 23, 2012 at 12:01 AMApr 23, 2012 at 11:06 PM

John Marquardt, a 30-year-old Hingham police officer who lives in Halifax, is now safely home from a 12-month tour of duty that brought him to the front lines of Afghanistan. He brought back both a Purple Heart –– awarded after he was struck with debris from a roadside bomb –– and an Army Commendation Medal for Valor for his role in a battle in the Afghan mountains.

Neal Simpson

As machine-gun fire and rocket-propelled grenades rained down around him, John Marquardt sprinted to a damaged position in the Afghan mountains and grabbed a gun to cover a fellow soldier who had been knocked to the ground by enemy fire.

For more than eight hours, Marquardt and eight other American soldiers fought off more than 50 Taliban fighters trying to overtake their observation position in the jagged mountains near the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. When the gunfire finally stopped the next morning, the Americans and their Afghan counterparts learned that 15 Taliban fighters had been killed.

Marquardt, a 30-year-old Hingham police officer who lives in Halifax, is now safely home from a 12-month tour of duty that brought him to the front lines in Afghanistan. He brought back both a Purple Heart – awarded after he was struck with debris from a roadside bomb – and an Army Commendation Medal for Valor for his role in the battle in the Afghan mountains.

After a year of warily eyeing every passing car as a possible suicide bomber, he said he has spent the past few weeks getting readjusted to the pace of life on the South Shore – as well as being grateful for making it back.

“There were a couple of times when we didn’t think we were going to get out,” he said. “I spend more of my time being thankful that I’m alive than on what could have happened.”

A former Abington police officer, Marquardt had been working with the Hingham Police Department for less than a year when he was deployed with the Army National Guard last spring. He shipped off just weeks after proposing to his girlfriend of four years and spent just one night in the house he’d bought for them after she said yes.

“There was nothing in it,” he said. “I just stayed in it.”

After four months of training in Indiana, Marquardt was shipped off to Kunar Province, a mountainous region on the Pakistani border that remains one of the most violent parts of Afghanistan. His first night at the base, his unit was told to transport dozens of injured soldiers returning from an operation in which several soldiers were killed.

Then in July, Marquardt was stationed on a mountaintop with a small contingent of American and Afghan soldiers when they learned that Taliban fighters planned to attack their position to free a combatant whom Marquardt had captured, according to an official account.

Marquardt said he fired the first shot of what became an eight-hour battle when he saw several fighters armed with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher coming over a hill.

“After that, all hell broke loose,” he said.

A narrative that accompanied Marquardt’s commendation said he repeatedly “exposed himself to enemy fire” to help other soldiers and fight the enemy. The commendation said he “distinguished himself with exceptionally valorous and courageous actions” that “contributed to the survival of his squad in the most dire conditions.”

It was not Marquardt’s last close call. In August, a 135-pound homemade bomb exploded on the side of the road and sprayed Marquardt with rocks and debris while he was with a convoy in Kunar Province.

“Just in the face” he said, nonchalantly, “nothing that takes you out of the fight”.

The injury earned him a Purple Heart.

After Taliban attacks repeatedly delayed his flight out of Afghanistan, Marquardt finally returned home in late March and has spent the last several weeks with friends and family, including his fiancee, Cara Hulse.

Joy Thomson, a volunteer at First Baptist Church of Hingham, corresponded with Marquardt occasionally over the last year about the care packages the church had sent him. She said she’s relieved he’s back home.

“I have goose bumps,” she said.

Hingham police are eager to see Marquardt return to the department and have organized a ceremony to welcome him back May 2.

“Obviously, we’re excited and proud,” said Deputy Chief Glenn Olsson. “It shows the caliber of the officers we have.”

Marquardt said he is eager to get back to work. He said he lives with “some of the terrible things” he experienced in Afghanistan, but is determined not to let it dominate his life.

“A lot of guys didn’t get the chance to come home. So being able to get out of there with all your faculties in order and with your wits about you still, I consider myself not only blessed but fortunate,” he said. “Not everybody got to go home.”

Neal Simpson may be reached at nesimpson@ledger.com.

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